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He was a brilliant and inexorable strategist. She had seen him in action too many times in business now to doubt it, and had marvelled more than once that his adversaries hadn’t seemed to be aware of what he was doing, not realising all the time he was applying an equally ruthless policy with her.
But perhaps she was imagining all this? Kim sat for a moment more in the BMW before squaring her shoulders and opening the car door. Whatever, she couldn’t let her guard down with Lucas Kane, not for a moment. That, if nothing else in the whole tangled situation, was crystal-clear.
The March day was damp and mild but very blowy, and in spite of the fact that her parking space was only a few yards away from the main doors of Kane Electrical, the wind had tugged several golden tendrils of hair loose from its customary tight knot at the back of her head by the time she entered the building.
Charlie, the caretaker, was standing in a quiet and empty Reception—it being too early for the rest of the staff yet—and addressed her immediately, saying, ‘Power cut, I’m afraid, Mrs Allen. All the lights are out and the lifts are down, but they assure me it won’t be too long before we’re back in operation.’
‘Thanks, Charlie. Looks like it’ll be Shanks’ pony and the stairs, then.’ Kim flashed the elderly man a grin before making for the stairs at the back of an unusually dark Reception and running up them lightly, her mind already grappling with the first few things she had to do that day.
She emerged from the fire door into the top floor corridor dimly lit by the emergency lighting, still concentrating on her imminent workload, and straight into the arms of her esteemed boss with enough force to send them both against the far wall.
She was pressed against the length of him, his arms holding her in instinctive protection against his muscled chest, and as she raised a flushed and breathless face to him, her wind-blown hair curling in shiny, silky strands about her pink cheeks, he made no attempt to let her go.
The hushed dark corridor, the utter absence of all sound or movement made the moment surreal, like a vaguely remembered chimerical dream, and it seemed part of the fantasy when his dark head bent and caught her mouth in a deep languorous kiss that went on and on. His lips were moving against hers slowly as he crushed her closer, his hand cupping her head for deeper penetration as he urged her into an increasingly intimate acceptance of his hungry mouth, and it didn’t occur to Kim to even struggle.
There was an insistence, a dominant mastery that demanded rather than asked for her consent and there was no way she could refuse. She had lived this moment so many times, tasted it, savoured it in her dreams, and now, in the shadowy alien confines of the silent corridor, fantasy and fact were combining in overwhelming ecstasy.
Heat was surging in the core of her, lighting flickers of fire in every nerve and sinew, and as her lips parted to allow his probing tongue access into the secret places her body curved closer into him, the physical ache becoming sweeter.
He made a small sound of pleasure deep in his throat and Kim answered it with one of her own, faintly bewildered by her desire. She had lost all thought of where she was, her mind and her emotions totally captive to the sensations he was evoking with such consummate ease. This was the sort of kiss she had dreamt about as a young, romantic teenager before life had taught her such things only existed in the land of make-believe, but this was real, this was now.
She was kissing him back in the way she had during her sleeping fantasies, without restraint, hungrily searching for she knew not what.
Graham had not been an adventurous or a thoughtful lover and she hadn’t slept with anyone before her husband, therefore her sexual experience was limited to Graham’s hasty couplings without much finesse. This was gloriously, frighteningly different.
The warmth and the slowly building ache in the core of her femininity, the spasmodic thrills circulating her bloodstream and causing her breath to shudder and gasp against his warm knowing mouth, were something outside her knowledge and desperately seductive. This was pleasure; this was the sort of pleasure she had read about but never imagined was so fiery, so consuming, so frightening. And she wanted more, much more.
Kim wasn’t even aware of the sudden brightness of lights against her closed eyelids, but the whirr of the lift did cause her to open dazed eyes, or perhaps it was the fact that Lucas’s mouth had left hers.
‘The power’s back on.’ His voice was thick and husky and he still held her against him, his arousal hard against her softness.
She was trembling, she knew she was trembling, and now that his lips had stopped fuelling the fire that had eaten up all her inhibitions and common sense she felt a growing horror at her complete submission to his lovemaking. And bereft. Bereft at the feeling of loss now it had stopped.
‘Let…let go of me.’ It was a faint whisper but he didn’t argue, his eyes a brilliant silver in the hard, ruthless lines of his face.
‘That was unintentional, Kim.’
As she jerked back from him, her hands to her hot face, the words caught at her. Was he saying he regretted it? She stared at him wildly, her eyes deep pools of black velvet in the flushed smoothness of her face. Probably. But then she had more or less offered herself on a plate and few men would resist such an opportunity. What would have happened if the power hadn’t come back on when it did?
She clenched her shaking hands into tight fists at her side, noticing, with further shame, that Lucas was perfectly cool and relaxed. And it was her humiliation that made her say, her voice bitter and tight, ‘You mean you just felt a sudden urge for a quickie?’
Immediately the ugly words left her lips she wished them back, the crudeness shocking her, but it was too late. She had said them. Out of pain and anguish, but she’d still said them.
And Lucas was furious. She knew it from the dark colour that flared across the hard cheekbones and the muscle working in his jaw, but his voice was at direct variance to his face when he said icily, ‘You rate yourself very cheaply if you believe that.’
‘I’d say it’s you who rates me cheaply,’ she hissed back sharply.
‘Then you’d be wrong.’ The words were like bullets. ‘If you were anyone other than who you are I wouldn’t have stopped at a kiss, believe me, Kim.’
What did that mean? That he had stopped because he didn’t fancy her that much, or because she was his secretary and it would cause too many complications, or what? ‘So you expect me to be grateful you didn’t force me?’ she snapped bitterly.
‘I wasn’t using any force.’ His voice was soft now, soft and mocking, and his eyes dared her to deny what they both knew. ‘You were with me every inch of the way from the second our lips touched.’
‘I don’t think so!’ she flung sarcastically.
‘I know so.’ He paused, the glittering silver eyes like liquid steel as they held hers. ‘But when I take you it won’t be in a work situation and on the floor of a corridor, Kim. That’s a promise.’
She stared at him, utterly taken aback and more frightened than she had ever been in her life. But not of Lucas. Of the feeling deep inside his softly growled words had evoked. She wanted to hate him or at least dislike him but she couldn’t. Neither could she pretend that he was just someone she worked for and dismiss him the moment she left the building; he had woven himself too skilfully into her life for that.
